867.24/3–945: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom ( Winant ) to the Secretary of State
[Received 9:30 p.m.]
2454. ReEmbs 1461, February 10, 7 p.m.34 The following communication concerning the Lend Lease Agreement with the Turkish Government has just been received from the Foreign Office.
“I am sorry to have been so long in replying to your letter of the ninth February in which you informed me of the reluctance of the Turkish Government to sign a Lend Lease Agreement on account of the possibility that in so doing they might be called upon to pay twice over for those items of United States Lend Lease origin re-transferred to them through British channels. It has taken some time to find out the details of this rather complicated matter.
Last year the departments concerned went fully into the question as it stood at that time, and the results of their investigations were embodied in a letter which Davidson of the Treasury wrote to Mr. Northrop [Winthrop] Brown of your Embassy on the thirteenth July last. That letter shows that arrangements were made whereby all identifiable Lend Lease items re-transferred to the Turkish Government by ourselves are reported to Washington and expressly excluded from the Anglo-Turkish armaments credit so that all such items represent a direct obligation by the Turks to the United States Government. We have been and are continuing to apply this method.
We should be quite prepared to give the Turkish Government an assurance in this sense. I understand however that they have now signed the Lend Lease Agreement with you; and in these circumstances I should be glad to learn whether you still consider it desirable that we should give the Turks this assurance.”
Please let us know whether it is still desired that the British give the Turks the assurance dealt with in the foregoing communication.